1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates a cargo handling vehicle such as a forklift truck, and more particularly to a cargo handling vehicle which can turn a body thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
A forklift truck is a cargo handling vehicle for carrying cargo placed on fork arms provided at the front of a body of the vehicle and the body can change its traveling direction or raise and/or lower the fork arms when an operator operates a steering wheel or associated levers. In a case where a forklift truck such as this is used to unload cargo, when cargo is loaded on a pallet, distal ends of the fork arms are inserted into insertion openings in the pallet so that the cargo is lifted together with the pallet and the pallet and cargo are transported to a target place, where the cargo is unloaded from the pallet. The empty pallet from which the cargo has been unloaded is then transported by the forklift truck to a predetermined place where the pallet so transported is then stacked on pallets which are stacked at the place for storage.
FIGS. 31A and 31B are diagrams showing a situation in which an empty pallet is transported by a forklift truck for stacking, and the forklift truck 100 and the pallets 40a, 40b are viewed from the top in the diagram. In the figure, reference numeral 1 denotes a body of the forklift truck 100, reference numerals 2a, 2b fork arms, respectively, provided left and right at the front of the body 1, reference numeral 3 a mast along which the fork arms 2a, 2b are raised and/or lowered, reference numeral 40a the pallet stacked at a predetermined place, and reference numeral 40b the pallet carried by the fork arms 2a, 2b of the forklift truck 100. FIG. 32 is a perspective view of the pallet 40a, 40b (represented by reference numeral 40), and the pallet 40 is constructed by assembling wood plates 42, and insertion holes 41 are formed between end beams 421 and a central beam 422, respectively, for insertion of the fork arms 2a, 2b thereinto.
With the forklift truck 100 being now positioned as shown in FIG. 31A relative to the stacked pallet 40a, in order to place the pallet 40b carried by the fork arms 2a, 2b on the stacked pallet 40a in such a manner as to align with each other, the forklift truck 100 is then moved to a position where the pallet 40b overlaps the pallet 40a as shown in FIG. 3l. Band thereafter the pallet 40b is place on the pallet 40a in an overlapped fashion.
However, in order to move the forklift truck 100 from the position shown in FIG. 31A to the position shown in FIG. 31B, the orientation of the body 1 has to be changed by manipulating the steering wheel and levers and the body 1 also has to be moved transversely and longitudinally. This makes it difficult for beginners to move the body to a desired position smoothly, and in particular in a case where the fork arms 2a, 2b are positioned close to the pallet 40a, the operations need to be repeated several times, and therefore, lots of time has to be spent unloading cargo. In addition, there is imposed a limitation to a range where the body 1 can be moved in a narrow space, and therefore, the implementation of theforesaid operations becomes more inefficient.